Letter: Somerset, Fall River should support new bottle bill

Monday

Jun 9, 2014 at 3:50 PM

The Massachusetts Sierra Club recently posted a list of 210 cities and towns in the state which have asked their state representatives and senators to support the “bottle bill update,” currently under consideration. Somerset and Fall River do not appear on the list, dated April 9, 2012.

The Massachusetts Sierra Club recently posted a list of 210 cities and towns in the state which have asked their state representatives and senators to support the “bottle bill update,” currently under consideration. Somerset and Fall River do not appear on the list, dated April 9, 2012.

This seems strange, since both Somerset and Fall River currently face financial problems, one from the closing of power plants, and the other from closing of their landfill. Yet there appears to be little interest in reducing the cost of waste disposal by reducing waste volume.

In a 2009 report, the Mass. DEP estimated a potential savings of $4 million to $7 million annually to state municipalities by expanding the bottle bill. New York, Connecticut and Maine already have expanded bottle laws. But in Massachusetts, we still send 30,000 tons, some one billion containers, of bottles to landfills and incinerators each year.

The potential savings is real. The containers which would be affected make up 5.4 percent of the waste stream by weight, and 15.2 percent by volume, according to recent estimates.

And the savings to Somerset and Fall River would be worthwhile. Somerset expends about $1.5 million annually on waste disposal. And Fall River seeks to increase annual income by $3.5 million via the PAYT program.

Aside from finance, there is another concern of much greater importance: Where will the trash go?

Fall River has a City Council Committee on Health and Environmental Affairs.

They have held hearings to review options available when the landfill closes. But if there has been any focus on health or environmental concerns relating to waste disposal, there has been none reported in The Herald News. Are we to assume that there are no health or environmental concerns related to waste disposal?

Landfills in the state are filling up, and there is a moratorium on new incinerators. Both are undesirables. A writer to The Herald News has already noted that the PAYT program will merely add more plastic bags to the waste.

It’s a fair question, and it deserves a serious response: Where will the trash go?